Huckabee and the "Colbert Bump"

Perhaps you've heard of the "Colbert Bump"? Mike Huckabee recently appeared on Stephen Colbert's Comedy Central show and attributed his surprising success in Iowa to the phenomenon. Let's go to the tape ... after the jump.

Back when Huckabee was garnering a paltry 1 percent in national polls, he appeared on the Colbert Report. The titular host noted that the Huckster was trailing, "Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, and six guys named Thompson" but announced, "Tonight that all changes because he's getting the Colbert Bump!"

Huckabee then proceeded to prattle on about "authenticity," referring to Colbert as an "authentic conservative" (irony alert!), then jokingly invited Colbert to be his running mate. But while Huckabee attempted to refer to a campaign bumper sticker, he instead made a Freudian slip (twice!) and said, "The bumper stripper reads Huckabee/Colbert: The Winning Ticket in '08." Check the video:

Turns out the "Colbert Bump" was no joke, because Huckabee caught fire and surged in the polls, pulling off a win in Iowa that would previously have been unthinkable. So Huckabee came back to his sugar daddy.

"The only reason that I'm the frontrunner now is because of the Colbert Bump," Huckabee says, before conceeding that otherwise he'd be somewhere serving, "Huckaburgers."

More bon mots:

Colbert: "Do we both still feel that evolution is a farce?
Huckabee: "It's all a farce." (hyuk-hyuk, I don't believe in science!)

Colbert: "How about outsourcing jobs?"
Huckabee: "As long as it isn't mine." (hyuk-hyuk, people are unemployed because of NAFTA).

Colbert: "Is it true that you do not support building a pneumatic tube to fire Mexicans back to Guadalajara?"
Huckabee: "No, I don't support that. I'm not quite that harsh." (hyuk-hyuk, I lied to the leader of the Minutemen.)

Colbert concludes with this advice for his running mate: "Remember: Stay a Huckabee. Not a Huckawas."